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 Bernard
Mizeki was born in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) in about 1861. When
he was twelve or a little older, he left his home and went to Capetown,
South Africa, where for the next ten years he worked as a laborer, living in
the slums of Capetown, but (perceiving the disastrous effects of drunkenness
on many workers in the slums) firmly refusing to drink alcohol, and
remaining largely uncorrupted by his surroundings. After his day's work, he
attended night classes at an Anglican school. Under the influence of his
teachers, from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE, an Anglican
religious order for men, popularly called the Cowley Fathers), he became a
Christian and was baptized on 9 March 1886. Besides the fundamentals of
European schooling, he mastered English, French, high Dutch, and at least
eight local African languages. In time he would be an invaluable assistant
when the Anglican church began translating its sacred texts into African
languages.
After graduating from the school, he accompanied Bishop Knight-Bruce to
Mashonaland, a tribal area in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), to work
there as a lay catechist. In 1891 the bishop assigned him to Nhowe, the
village of paramount-chief Mangwende, and there he built a mission-complex.
He prayed the Anglican hours each day, tended his subsistence garden,
studied the local language (which he mastered better than any other
foreigner in his day), and cultivated friendships with the villagers. He
eventually opened a school, and won the hearts of many of the Mashona
through his love for their children.
He moved his mission complex up onto a nearby plateau, next to a grove of
trees sacred to the ancestral spirits of the Mashona. Although he had the
chief's permission, he angered the local religious leaders when he cut some
of the trees down and carved crosses into others. Although he opposed some
local traditional religious customs, Bernard was very attentive to the
nuances of the Shona Spirit religion. He developed an approach that built on
people's already monotheistic faith in one God, Mwari, and on their
sensitivity to spirit life, while at the same time he forthrightly
proclaimed the Christ. Over the next five years (1891-1896), the mission at
Nhowe produced an abundance of converts.
Many black African nationalists regarded all missionaries as working for the
European colonial governments. During an uprising in 1896, Bernard was
warned to flee. He refused, since he did not regard himself as working for
anyone but Christ, and he would not desert his converts or his post. On 18
June 1896, he was fatally speared outside his hut. His wife and a helper
went to get food and blankets for him. They later reported that, from a
distance, they saw a blinding light on the hillside where he had been lying,
and heard a rushing sound, as though of many wings. When they returned to
the spot his body had disappeared. The place of his death has become a focus
of great devotion for Anglicans and other Christians, and one of the
greatest of all Christian festivals in Africa takes place there every year
around the feast day that marks the anniversary of his martyrdom, June 18.
by James Kiefer
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